Hurricane Sandy has Mercer County, state officials scrambling to make voting easier

Mercer County election officials have been in a hectic race to overcome the obstacles created by Hurricane Sandy, announcing last-minute relocations of polling locations for today’s national, state and local elections, and preparing to accept electronic ballots from eligible voters as ordered by Gov. Chris Christie.

Continuing power outages and property damage have led to the designation of new polling places for some voting districts in East Windsor, Hightstown, Hopewell, Princeton and West Windsor, officials said at a news conference in Trenton yesterday.

Joanne Palmucci, chairwoman of the Mercer County board of elections, said that with the help of municipal officials, the board was able to find suitable locations near the districts. The board then hurried to notify voters, she said.

“We did send out postcards, which should have been received on Saturday, with the new polling locations if it was changed,” Palmucci said.

In a state directive, Gov. Chris Christie approved emergency changes to voting rules to lower the barriers to voting in the hardest hit communities. Residents who have been displaced from their homes by the storm, as well as emergency response workers, may vote electronically by email or fax for today’s election. All electronic ballots must be received by 5 p.m. today.

Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami Covello said that for a person to qualify to vote by email or fax, his or her home must have suffered damage in the storm. Those who only lost power to their home do not qualify, she said. County residents who believe they are eligible and wish to vote electronically are asked to call the clerk’s office at (609) 989-6464.

To prevent voter fraud, her office will verify all electronically submitted ballots, Sollami Covello said. Voters must transmit a signed waiver of secrecy with their electronic ballot so the Board of Elections can count their votes.

The state is also allowing any displaced New Jersey voter to vote by provisional ballot at any polling location in New Jersey, but only in the presidential election and the state-wide ballot question, not for local races. Under the state directive, completed provisional ballots will be sent to the county where the voter is registered to be counted.

All of the changes in the directive are only for voting today and will expire after the general election is over.

Sollami Covello said the county saw an sharp increase this year in the number of people who used vote by mail ballots.

“We processed more than 600 vote by mail ballots on Sunday,” Sollami Covello said. “We have never seen anything like this.”

It is not unusual to see such an increase during a presidential election, but this year’s increase is so steep that much of it is attributable to the storm, she said.

Christie had also ordered an exension of the deadline to submit vote by mail ballots. The deadline was extended to 4:30 p.m. yesterday to accommodate the large number of people using the ballots.

To ensure that all voters can make it to the polls, Mercer County officials are asking residents to assist their family, friends and neighbors on Election Day, Sollami Covello said.

Polls are open today from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters can look up their polling locations by texting “WHERE” to 877877 and following the prompts.